


Taking Names

by ApocalypseThen



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-30 22:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApocalypseThen/pseuds/ApocalypseThen
Summary: Shepard's clone is cooling her heels in a black site brig with nothing but James Vega and a stack of paperbacks for company. Then one day a second chance comes calling.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Forlorn_Melody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forlorn_Melody/gifts).



She can see from his eyes that James knows that sound. Hell is a long way from any place natural light knows about, but sound carries along the klicks of raw concrete corridor in a way that makes her jittery. Sometimes they get snatches of conversation, or the occasional laugh bounced and stretched into a demonic register. The one thing she's grateful for is that she hardly ever hears gunfire any more, at least not when she's awake. This sound, though, he knows. He knows it is not a gun, but that it is deadly, and also beautiful, and he is scared enough that he sees her smirking but he doesn't have the gas in his tank for witty repartee. She can see all this from his eyes.

"She's coming," she says.

"Now how in the hell would you know a thing like that?" he snaps back. He's definitely rattled.

"Never thought I'd get to see you cream your pants," she teases. He makes to shut the observation slot. Hell is that primitive, it's all physical infrastructure down here. His keychain weighs three kilos. "Wait, no." She stands up, spreads her hands. He stops. "Sorry. She was there, today. In the crowd."

"Bull," he replies. "She's..."

The woman in the cell's eyes go wide.

"... right behind me?"

She nods. "Good luck," she mouths, because he might be her jailer, but he's also her only friend. The slot clangs shut. Normally the iron door transmits sound as perfectly as a drumskin, but she can't hear so much as a whisper. Maybe they have the kind of thing that doesn't need words, just the slow magnetic drag of eye contact. She sits and wonders when the exact moment was she became such a sap. Maybe the reading material was getting to her. Someone's idea of a joke, probably, those stacks of YA romance worming their hormone-soaked tropes into her brain.

She runs a hand through her hair. She hates keeping it long. Today they actually had her wearing make-up. Fuckers. Speaking of whom...

The slot screeches open. Eyes look in. She puts her hands on her knees like she's supposed to. She's become adept at playing the good girl. The door opens. This is unprecedented. Visitors are rare, and they never come in. _James_ doesn't even come in, no matter how explicitly she makes her case. He won't even stand still for her to reach through the slot.

The slight asymmetry of her stance accounts for the double-tap rhythm of her boots that had James wetting himself. It can't be a new thing, or he wouldn't have recognised it, and he can't have been expecting it either, given the state of his pants. Although, to be fair, his pants play a bigger role in her imagination than in any plausible reality. In any case, she looks surprisingly well, for someone who's died so many times.

The woman in the cell rises slowly to stand in front of the woman at the door. If it had been anyone else, she might have entertained delusions of freedom, but slight though the visitor is in comparison to the wide opening, her presence fills it. They've been there, and done that, and she doesn't think it would turn out any other way.

 _Hi, sis,_ she wants to say, _welcome to my humble, etc_ , but her snark gland is as dry as her mouth. "Hey," she croaks eventually.

Shepard, for it is her, is giving her a long slow once-over with a gimlet eye. She wonders if this is what she just did to James, right outside the door. If so, he might never be the same again. That makes something hurt inside that she can't quite identify, but that Cassie T'Pone, junior commando, would probably call 'feels'. God _damn,_ she thinks. _Teen lit ate my brain._

She hopes her lily liver isn't transparent to Shepard's gaze. Are those eyes enhanced? If she had a mirror in here she'd know. Part of the deal is she doesn't get to see herself when they dress her up, not even in the make-up booth. It'd be nice to think she could pull off a stare like that, but you probably needed to see some shit to unlock that particular ability.

Suddenly Shepard is on the move. She stands her ground, because there really isn't anywhere to go, but she can't help leaning back just a little. Shepard's movement is fluid and spare. If you didn't know what you were looking for you'd barely notice the tiny drag of her left leg.

Shepard's thumb is at the corner of her mouth, fingers decorating her jaw. She freezes, panicked. Is this some freaky N7 kata? Is Shepard going to crush her carotid? On the other hand, nobody's touched her for weeks, and then not deliberately. If it comes with a side of intimacy, she'll eat a pain sandwich.

This is more than a little intimate. She feels gooey. _Damn you, Cassie T'Pone._

Shepard inspects her thumb up close. "Lipstick?" she says. Her eyes track up to look the prisoner straight in the eye. "Fuckers."

And like that, they're both smiling. "Fuckers," she agrees. She puts her whole body into aligning her feelings with Shepard's, but somehow without coming off as craven.

Shepard notices. "You're a pretty good actress."

"Thanks. You're a tough act to follow." The prisoner has come up with plenty of scenarios for how this reunion would go, but banter wasn't in any of them. She grins.

Shepard's smile shifts from warm into warning. She looks over her shoulder. She looks back. "Let's go." She turns.

The clone's eyes widen. "For real?"

"Pack fast." Shepard's already at the door.

She jerks forward like a marionette. Her body can't quite believe that she can just walk through that door, but her brain is giving her body reasons to reconsider its convictions. It still makes her lunge back and grab something, anything, just a memento really, but she does really want to find out how volume three ends, because the vampire pirates have just taken the junior commando unit hostage and... she stuffs the book in a pocket. _I'll die of shame,_ she thinks, _just not right now._

The pounding she thought was her heart fighting its way up her throat is James knocking his head against the wall opposite. He's taught her enough Spanish that she can tell he's counting backwards in... threes? With cusswords in between? He has his fingers stuffed in his ears. His profane muttering merges with the echoes of Shepard's double-tap strides, which are leaving her in the dust. She has to trot to catch up.

"You pick a name?" Shepard's on point, eyes covering every door and cross-corridor.

She hasn't, because she knows Commander Shepard is just a skin she slips on when she has to put on a show, but it's not really her and never has been. Some things become clear when you have a lot of time to think, other things, like self-identification, congeal in a pre-pubescent haze of confusion and denial. Then all of a sudden, between one step and another, she knows who she is but also that she hates herself. She nearly stumbles. "Jesus, fuck."

"I like it." Shepard had apparently mastered deadpan while she was still in the cradle. "You've got to meet my friend Jack. Tried to change her name to..."

"Cassie," she blurts, before she loses her nerve. "I'm Cassie." _Aiiiiiiieeeeeee_ , screams her inner voice, _I've gone soft in the heeeeeaaaaaaaaad._

"Oh, thank god," says Shepard. Blink and you'll miss her wry smile. "I was going to introduce you to my mom."

Cassie follows in Shepard's wake. Everything is confusing her in new and exciting ways.

Before, she filtered her experiences through surrogates. First, it was _what would Maya do_? Then, _what does Shepard think_ about this or that situation? As if anyone could figure out what it means to be someone else. Lately she's been trying to get into James' head. Or pants. Or both.

Now Cassie isn't thinking, _what would Cassie do?_ but _what the fuck am_ I _getting into?_

Shepard is a step ahead in ways both literal and figurative. “Need you for a thing,” she says. She checks the sightlines and guides them into a side door.

Cassie finds herself bouncing up the stairs. She doesn’t know where that comes from. She never bounced with Maya. “Is it a thing where, like, a diverse group of highly trained specialists find love in each other’s arms while they work together to solve a galactic crisis? Kind of thing?” Her voice cracks and goes high at the end.

Shepard looks at her, a worried frown creasing her forehead for a second. “What? No. Have they been medicating you?”

“Sorry.” Cassie bloats with embarrassment. “I… uh… think about you a lot. For the day job.”

“You look better in that dress uniform than I ever did,” Shepard offers.

Cassie grabs on to the compliment for dear life. She doesn’t know why her alter ego’s approval is so desperately important to her, but it is. “Uh, thanks.”

Shepard is in a sharing mood. “They tried putting me in front of a camera. It did not go well.”

They concentrate on climbing stairs for a while. “So, this thing...” Cassie tries.

“Later,” says Shepard, opening the final door.

It’s raining outside but Cassie doesn’t care. Her previous sorties have been so limited in scope she never even saw the sky. From blacked-out transport to studios, lecture halls, or scripted Q and A with as many takes as necessary until she got the delivery right. At first she drew it out, fucking with them so that she’d be out for longer, but she figured out quick that James has more personality in his left bun than all of her other handlers put together. _Home is where your hunk is._ She lets the rain play on her face for a long minute.

Shepard is already sitting in a skycar, waiting. Cassie goes over. She puts her hand on the door, but doesn’t get in. Klaxons start to wail and the concrete lot is bathed in red. James must have finally wound down to _nada_. “Tell me. Or I walk.”

It’s an empty threat, or maybe it isn’t. Shepard’s voice is flat but her eyes are a picture. “I need you to help me steal the Normandy."

The skycar fades into the sheeting rain.


	2. Chapter 2

They hug the coastline. Cassie marvels at the hulking corpse of the downed Reaper looming offshore in the summer fog. She notices that none of the new towers along this stretch have windows on their seaward faces.

Shepard’s penthouse is on the tower closest to the empty shell, right at the edge of the perfectly circular new bay where a good chunk of downtown used to be. They land on the roof and walk through an entrance set into a glass wall.

Cassie stops dead. Something that looks just like James is sprawled on the couch. “Is it… was mine,” she whispers to Shepard, “you know? Like me?”

Shepard’s eyebrow’s pop. “Not everyone has an evil clone, Cass,” she whispers back.

“So how’d he get here before us?”

“I took,” he announces smugly, and loudly, “the elevator!”

Cassie’s hand drops from her mouth to her hip. “Oh. Well, in that case...” She marches over to the couch and socks him a good one on the jaw. “That’s for being a tease.” She bends down and chews him for ten long seconds. His tongue is a frightened slug and his lips are in full retreat. Then Shepard’s pulling her off.

“Cassie,” Shepard says gently, “Vega is for flirting and fighting. He is not a toy.”

Her crush on him dries up and blows away as the heat in her knuckles blooms. She remembers what it feels like to be righteous and free. Is she either? Or is she still the evil one and is this just an extension of her confinement? “I need ice.”

Behind her, she hears Shepard and James exchange a few words. He sounds confused. Shepard's laugh is a subdued tinkle compared to her own explosive peals. While she searches for the fridge she waits for jealousy to rear its ugly head. Her infatuation must really just have been a byproduct of incarceration. She's a little bit surprised that she's already forgetting what prison was like, but she's an incurable optimist and has been all her short life. It used to drive Brooks nuts.

She wraps some ice in a towel and heads back. She tosses it to James. "Sorry."

"No es nada," he says with grace. He puts the ice to his jaw, more for the look of the thing than because he actually needs it. She didn't hit him with everything she had. She sits down opposite him.

Shepard makes a formal introduction, a smirk dimpling her cheeks. "James, this is Cassie."

He winces through a grin. "Like the..."

Her look spears him through the voicebox. They may or may not have spent long hours discussing fine points of plot involving Cassie T'Pone's audacious adolescent exploits and romantic entanglements, but they are as sure as hell not going to bring them up now. Volume three bulges incriminatingly in her pocket. “What was all that back there, then, if you were in on it?” She can’t make herself say _jail_ or _prison_ or _cell_ out loud.

Shepard answers. “Easier to get you to come with me that way.”

Cassie frowns. “This isn’t, like, some _all you had to do was try the handle!_ mindfuck, is it?” She’ll never live it down if it is.

“You want to go back there and check, I’ll lend you these,” says James, hefting his keychain.

Although she’d like to know more about their prison-break pantomime, right now Cassie needs to change the subject. "So, this thing. Am I bait?"

Shepard's smile turns feral. "You're the decoy. You've been training."

"I assume you have a plan. Does it end with me dead or back in a cell?"

Shepard tilts her head at James. "Give us some time, here."

"Sure thing, Commander," he says as he flips his bulk up. "I'll be in the back."

Shepard comes and sits down next to her, knee up on the couch, elbow on the backrest. "You tried to kill me."

Cassie's ready for this one. It's all very obvious to her now. "No. That was someone else." She gets up and paces, opens her mouth to lay it out for Shepard.

Shepard intercepts her on the turn with a hug. “I forgive you.”

Cassie’s words die in her mouth. She feels the thing inside her, the raging thing, thunder and batter at her chest, but Shepard doesn’t show any sign of letting go. Cassie hugs her back eventually. The thing convulses, once, twice, and then it’s dead. Or maybe sleeping. Things can be tricky that way.

Shepard pulls back and frowns. “You’re taller than me?”

"Cuter, too."

"Fucking Brooks," they say at the same time, Cassie while shrugging, Shepard with a petulant pout that takes years off her face.

They share a moment of amicable silence. Shepard still has an arm half around her. She's been so focused on conforming to the obvious similarities for her performances that she hasn't noticed the little differences. She always thought it was her hair that gave her the illusion of an extra couple of centimeters. "You got a mirror someplace?" she asks, and the very question makes her scalp itch. She can feel her cheeks going off like warning lights.

Shepard seems as curious as she is to find out who's who. This bedroom has guns in it. Lots of guns, but also an ensuite with a mirror. Cassie briefly pictures posing in here with one of the long rifles, clothed in rising curls of steam, and then she catches Shepard's reflected eyes.

Height's the most obvious improvement that Brooks made. Cassie doesn't lean ever so slightly to the left. Her shoulders are broader, but maybe Shepard was young and buff once too. It could be just the lighting but there's something about the angles of the nose and the folds of the ears that makes Shepard look more streamlined and Cassie a bit more open. How much is programmed and how much is from living, neither of them can say. They're different enough that they couldn't be twins, but much too similar to be sisters.

Cassie tucks her annoying hair behind her ear for the millionth time today. "Your leg?" she asks.

"Born that way," Shepard replies.

"I didn't even choose these clothes," says Cassie, aware that she sounds a little whiny.

"There might be some stuff'll fit you in the wardrobe."

The last thing Cassie wants right now is more Shepard. She hesitates.

Shepard understands. "Stuff a friend left," she clarifies.

"A friend?" Cassie feels her nose twitch but can't do anything about it. The briefings don't include those kinds of details. She's curious.

Shepard's look is steel. "I don't know you _that_ well." She gives Cassie some privacy.

Whoever she is, she has Cassie's farmgirl physique. There's plenty of room in the thighs and shoulders. She changes her mind about the stretch pants and picks a pair with cargo pockets, for the book. Then she has to go back and pick a different top. Then she finds a pair of boots that make her re-evaluate everything she ever knew about fashion, which was not a lot to begin with, but she can't argue with love.

She emerges, a shiny pupa. She's pleased with the look she's put together. Shepard's polite enough to only raise an eyebrow. James stares at her tits a little too hard for him not get a little embarrassed when she makes eye contact.

A scarred turian sits on the sofa. A small dark woman is by the window. They both turn their heads to look at her. Cassie's met them before but hasn't been properly introduced, although being in his rifle's sights might count with Garrus Vakarian. She grinds her teeth when she remembers Brooks' casual, mocking offer to keep Samantha Traynor when they took the Normandy. Cassie hadn't so much vetoed that as spluttered incoherently until Brooks took pity on her. "Hi," is all she can muster.

Garrus is far too relaxed to worry about the two-body problem, or he's already been briefed. Samantha's face is more confusing. There's anger in there, tempered with something else.

"Let's get to it," says Shepard.


	3. Chapter 3

Cassie sees their game faces go on. She does her best to find her own and hopes she doesn't look too much like an earnest tool. _Fake it 'til you make it,_ she thinks, although she has doubts about how well advice from a novel aimed at teen toms will hold up under fire. She's starting to wonder if Cassie T'Pone, despite having a solid lock on all the sass in the galaxy, has the answers she needs.

Samantha syncs her omni-tool to the penthouse systems like she's tying a hog. With a wave, a flick, and an enthusiastic thrust, the glass wall turns cloudy, the lights dim, and the log files squeal as they're flipped on their backs and scrubbed down. Cassie's enthralled.

"The 63rd Scout Flotilla," begins Samantha, "is in for resupply at L5 station." She pauses while her holograms zoom around to give them a tactical overview of the rotating station and the cloud of vessels surrounding it. "Intel indicates that the Normandy is still the only stealth-capable ship in the entire Fifth Fleet. However, Admiral Mikhailovich has been using her like a battering ram. She's being patched up at L5 but given the damage to her propulsion systems and armor plating, he'd be better off standing her down for a full refit."

Garrus pipes up. "Which he won't do. As you all know, the pompous hairdo has a raging hard-on for that ship." His voice does funny things to Cassie's middle.

" _Our_ ship," James corrects him. Cassie looks at him. In the months she's known him, she's never seen him take anything so seriously.

"Can we force his hand?" Shepard asks. "Get him to send her down here? Or Luna yards?"

"Short of sabotaging L5 station, no," says Garrus. "I assume that's not something you want to do?" 

Cassie watches Shepard think it over for a microsecond before shaking her head.

"Guess we're heading out there, then," says James. "Damn, I was just getting used to this gig. The hours, the company..."

Cassie returns his grin with a forced smile, because she's watching what's going on minutely. Maybe Samantha's prepped for any possible scenario, but it looks awfully like she's reached the same conclusion and already has a transport solution locked and arcing out of her holo to link L5 to Vancouver. Is everyone here such a brainiac that they haven't thought of the obvious? She feels so out of place that she almost doesn't speak up.

Almost. "Just say it's coming for V-day," she blurts.

Significant glances flicker and multiply in the briefing twilight. Cassie looks through the looping hologram to find Samantha crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out for a half-second. She bites down on a giggle.

"I like it," Shepard says finally. "I've been doing media for V-day all week." 

It's only the corner of her mouth that gives Shepard away. Although she'd be damn glad to get out of the game, Cassie files that micro-expression away against the day she has to trot out her second skin one more time.

"They'd have a hard time rowing that back," agrees Garrus, "if it's coming from you."

"Let's take a break," Shepard announces. "Spin your wheels and come back in ten with some ideas."

Cassie has sunk so far into the couch that she needs to be levered out by James, who also takes an empty bottle from her that she has no recollection of either consuming or picking the label off of. She does need to pee, though, so she wanders off to find a bathroom.

Samantha ambushes her just outside a likely-looking door. "Cassie, is it?" she asks. Her voice may be honey but her eyes are cruising for a bust-up.

Cassie just nods. She can't think of anything to say that won't sound fake. And she doesn't want to have to hurt anyone.

Samantha's approach to conflict resolution is unorthodox and involves tongue. Cassie isn't as experienced as her namesake, so she can't say for sure, but if she can feel it all the way to her knees it must be a pretty good kiss. She grabs on to Samantha's cheeks and kisses back with gusto, pushing the shorter woman against the wall. Samantha redoubles her efforts but Cassie has been starved of human contact, like, forever and takes all she's given, then leans in for more.

"That's enough," pants Samantha, disengaging with a pop. Cassie pulls back, confusion beaming from her nose. "You're not like Shepard at all," Samantha continues. She frames her face with her index finger. "Somehow I can't see you on your back, begging. Pity."

Samantha saunters off leaving Cassie in quite the state. She goes into the bathroom and pees copiously, wondering if she should take care of business while she's here. Ten minutes might not be enough to deal with what she's feeling. If Samantha's plan was to reduce her to a hot hormonal mess, then she hasn't done too badly. Maybe it's revenge, maybe she's putting her in her place. Cassie prefers to think it’s plain old curiosity. What would she do if given the chance to make out with someone identical to her crush?

One thing Cassie realises is that she doesn’t like being yardsticked against Shepard all the time. She sets her broad shoulders as she walks back into the room, grinning. “So, Shepard,” she announces. Using the name in front of this select audience, she feels any lingering claim she might have on it wither and die. She hopes the rest of them see it that way, too. “You’ve already got a plan, or you wouldn’t have come looking for me, right? So let’s skip to the slow dance.”

Um. That was channelling the junior commando a little too directly. She hopes it’s obvious what she means without knowing the books.

Shepard is as unflappable as ever. “They grow up so fast,” she says, deadpan. “The plan’s simple. We clear the ship. Then we fly her away.”

Cassie’s not going to be put off by flippancy. “You said I’d be the decoy.” She doesn’t doubt they’re capable of doing what they’re saying, and Shepard has… wait, what _has_ Shepard promised, exactly?

Garrus rumbles to life. “You’ll keep the XO busy while we persuade the rest of the crew to leave. If you do it right, no-one will even suspect it was us.”

“In the meantime we’ve got some press releases to draft,” says Shepard. “I expect Alliance Comms will come knocking when they figure out you’ve gone.”

Cassie’s not letting this bone go. “Wait, come on. Why won’t the rest of the crew recognise you? And why can’t you give the XO the same treatment?” _A junior commando never gives up._

Shepard balls her fists, and Cassie sees a real emotion on her face for the first time. “Because she’s the most paranoid self-righteous smart-alec second-guessing...”

“Pernickety,” adds Garrus.

“By-the-book,” chorus Samantha and James.

“...stick-up-the-ass I ever slept with!” they all roar together.

Cassie shrinks back under the onslaught of camaraderie. The first question that pops into her head is not the most relevant one. “These are her boots, aren’t they?”

“They suit you,” says Samantha, without even a hint of guile. Maybe she’s worked through whatever issues she needed to. Cassie certainly picked up a couple of tricks from their encounter, so she’ll call it even.

“I’ve got to fool the one person you’ve been most intimate with, and do it well enough that she doesn’t even suspect it’s a diversion?” Cassie folds her arms. This is worlds away from being Shepard in bite-sized chunks, when the game and all the players are rigged. 

“I’ll give you a couple of things to say,” says Shepard. “After that, you probably won’t have to talk much.”

“Shepard,” says Garrus. Something in his tone freights that one word with a whole book’s worth of meaning.

Shepard blows her cheeks out. “I mean, we love her and we wish she’d come with us but it’s never gonna happen, so the best we can do is make sure she doesn’t take the fall. That’s your job.” 

Cassie nods. It’s more humanity than she’s ever seen, hanging out exposed and vulnerable. Shepard can’t have won any wars with her heart thumping away on her sleeve like this. She wonders if Shepard’s been relearning some of the things she’s picked up from James in the last few months. Lessons that she would find conspicuous by their absence from Brooks’ curriculum, now.

She wonders how long they’ve been planning this and what that means.


	4. Chapter 4

Cassie wakes up on the couch. No good reason for this comes to mind in the morning… uh, make that early-afternoon blur. Shepard showed her a spare room, but evidently she didn’t sleep in it. She acquires additional data by peeking under the blanket. She’s naked except for the boots. _My boots_ , she thinks happily. They might well be her first real possessions.

Cassie blinks. She’s hallucinating. She’s actually in her cell, dissociating to escape the torment of James’ breakfast humour. How else would you explain the barefoot nymph padding by, waterfalls of black hair framing her pert nose and flawless cheeks? And the way she’s leaning over to kiss the corner of your sleepy mouth, slipping her tongue in expertly to perk you up better than coffee ever could?

“Hey Sh… oh. Sorry. You again,” she says, in an accent a whole hemisphere out of place.

The voice brings back a few more fragments of the previous night. Cassie smiles, snakes an arm out from under her blanket and goes to pull Miranda down to her lips again, but she’s not quick enough. Cassie slumps back while her brain treats her to a scattershot of recollection.

_“Which of you peckers failed to inform me a party was in progress?” announces the new arrival. She unburdens herself of pairs of bottles from each hand and uncorks one in a most unladylike fashion._

_“Is it Tuesday already?” mutters Garrus._

_When she catches sight of Cassie she stalks over and wraps her in an embrace that gets hot and heavy fast, then ends abruptly. “Wait a second,” she says, “something’s not… oh. You. That’s new.”_

_Cassie sees the revelation in her eyes and goes to kiss her back. Miranda responds with everything she has, soft lips and vanilla-scented hair, firm thigh pressing for advantage, free hand tracing patterns down Cassie’s spine… they break it up when the audience gets quiet._

_Cassie stares at her, panting with desire. It might be true love, even. Then she watches her ass sway as it covers the ten paces to Shepard, where Miranda gives her the exact same welcome. Cassie’s heart shatters like glass._

_Later, Cassie’s out on the balcony with a gun, firing out over the water at projectiles that get bigger and bigger, but she just can’t seem to hit any of them, probably because the damn biotic is cheating and making their trajectories change after launch. Jack laughs at her until she snaps and throws the pistol over the side, where it makes contact with the plant pot on the way down._

_She’s frotting herself hard against Jack in a dark nook, their lips locked together. Jack’s dry humping her right back. Jack kisses with more enthusiasm than talent, and comes first, but is polite enough to let Cassie finish too. They share a shy smile and go their separate ways._

_A prothean is in the kitchen pleading with an asari, who won’t give him the time of day. They both turn to look at her, and she backs out again, feeling like she’s interrupting someone’s sex games._

A prothean? Cassie wonders how much she had to drink last night. She doesn’t feel hung over. Her nose informs her that an all-day breakfast will be found if her arms and legs perform several simple manoeuvres, which they do without her conscious intervention.

Shepard is propping up the breakfast bar with a tankard of coffee, picking the crispy bits out of something fried beyond recognition. She doesn’t seem the worse for drink either.

Cassie mounts the next stool along. “I like your friends,” she says. “I think I had fun last night.”

“You certainly have a way with people,” Shepard counters. “I should have busted you out earlier.”

“Thanks for that,” says Cassie. “In case I didn’t say it yet.” She inhales a crispy carbohydrate stick in a pair of ravenous bites.

“Oh, you said it,” says Shepard. “And a whole lot of other stuff too. Want to see the feeds?”

Cassie’s blind optimist knows that blindness is the key to remaining forever chipper. “Nah. Little weird that I have holes, though. I don’t feel like I drank enough for that.”

Shepard swallows a grilled cherry tomato. “We had to give you some medigel. It probably killed your headache.”

“I drank _that_ much?”

Shepard’s eyes are far away. “You kissed Garrus. With tongue. You cut your mouth up pretty bad.” She turns to look Cassie in the eye. “Funniest thing I ever saw.” She raises her coffee in salute.

Cassie clinks it with her juice. She’s still got all her teeth so it can’t have been _that_ bad. “I must have blanked that out. Do you party like that every night?”

“We try to be here Tuesdays so Miranda doesn’t drink alone.”

The casualness of Shepard’s revelation takes Cassie like a punch in the kidney. The thing rages behind her chest for a moment, _goody two shoes doesn’t even take a leak unless she’s helping someone out_. She looks at her food, willing it to confront her. Then she eats it, and the fried polysaccharides do their work on her reptilian id. The thing curls its scaly tail up again.

When she looks up Shepard is just gone, vanished without so much as moving the air. _Serious N7 juju,_ thinks the junior commando, looking around wide-eyed.

Cassie spins around on her barstool to see what's coming. She feels herself melting a little already. This flame's easily hot enough to evaporate a Shepard. The superheated blast from those war assets'll cut you as soon as look at you. Cassie steels herself, and her nipples perk right up. She tries to dredge up what she knows about Ashley Williams but it's a pathetic set of out-dated scraps. She's gonna have to play this one by the seat of the pants that she woke up without. Cassie wonders where her book has got to.

She dresses herself in clone-garb while she waits. She tweaks her shoulders back a little. She loosens one knee a fraction. She acquires a laziness in her eyes, which is as close as she can get to the gimlet stare Shepard used on her yesterday without squinting. This would probably be easier if she wasn't naked. Well, there's the boots.

Cassie notices that Ashley is not above giving her a slow once-over. _Best defense is a laser-guided fusion weapon,_ supplies Cassie T’Pone helpfully. “See something you like?” she asks when Ashley’s finally in sassing distance.

“Are those my boots?” Ashley asks.

She’s not being entirely serious, Cassie can see. Cassie shrugs, and watches Ashley’s eyes track the movement up. “My feet were cold.”

“It’s good to see… so much of you?” says Ashley.

“My place, my dress code,” says Cassie lightly. “Strip.”

There’s a flicker of something other than good humour in Ashley’s expression, but she masks it well with an eye roll. “Sorry, Skipper, I didn’t come here for this,” she says.

“This?” Cassie’s trying to keep some momentum behind her but she feels like her sass is being sucked dry.

Ashley pins her with a hard stare and Cassie has to fight to remember who she’s pretending to be. Her nipples wilt. “You know, the thing where we talk shit and then jump in the sack and then you clam up and get distant and I leave again.”

“Oh,” says Cassie, “that thing.” She returns Ashley’s gaze as calmly and non-confrontationally as she can.

Ashely’s face hardens a fraction further, even while her tone remains friendly. “I just came by to check on you. There was an incident.”

Cassie raises an eyebrow. She gets it just right. “Long way to come.” 

“Yeah, well, I was in the system,” Ashley says. There’s more she isn’t saying, Cassie’s pretty sure. “The prisoner who doesn’t exist? She isn’t there any more.” 

Cassie is a little disappointed they don’t have a cooler way of referring to her. Prisoner _X_. Inmate _Troubledouble_. She shrugs. “We kicked her ass before. We’ll do it again.” It sounds so corny when she says it like that. She doesn’t feel any shame in admitting it, though. Cassie sniffs an opportunity. “Brooks is still in the tank, right?” 

“First thing we checked.” 

Cassie tries on a smirk to hide her excitement. “Takes more than a pretty face, you know.” In the pit of her stomach, where the thing should be a writhing hot coal of betrayal, she feels a surge of lightness. 

A gun goes off, or a grenade, or something, because Ashley’s a lot closer all of a sudden, and looks dizzy. “Fuck you so hard, Shepard,” she whispers. She grabs the back of Cassie’s neck and mashes their lips together. 

Cassie tries one of the tricks she picked up from Samantha. It seems to work. Ashley has a couple of her own moves. A few seconds turns into a minute. 

Ashley’s so full of remorse it drips from her like venom. “Ah, for fuck’s sake.” She shakes her head. “See you around, Skipper.” She stalks off towards the door.

Cassie’s proud that she’s gotten away with it without even knowing how Shepard works her oscular magic. She lets a smile lift her. 

Ashley glances back once, the back of her hand wiping gently at her lips. Cassie freezes and hopes she hasn’t given it all away. Ashley’s eyes narrow, then she turns and walks on. 

__Cassie’s heart takes long moments to wind down from hummingbird to pachyderm. Then Shepard pops out of N7 stealth mode from like, nowhere, and it’s back to jackhammer._ _

__“You buying that?” Shepard asks._ _

__It’s got to be rhetorical. Cassie waits for more._ _

__“She knows.” Shepard is certain._ _

__“How could she?” Cassie asks._ _

“She doesn’t know _what_ she knows,” Shepard expands. “She just knows something’s off. She’ll keep pulling on the strings ‘til something gives.” She sounds resigned. 

Cassie feels a little bit affronted that she should have to be the one to give a pep talk. _You can’t always avoid collateral damage_ feels like the wrong tack to take with Shepard, though. She racks her fic-addled brain for advice. “Love is a bag of bullets. You never know which one’s got your name on it.” 

Cassie hopes Shepard’s face means that she hit the nail on the head. _Or it might be gas,_ whispers the junior commando. 


	5. Chapter 5

Somehow Shepard’s avoiding her. It’s not like the penthouse is that big. Cassie spends as much time in the gym as she cares to – it smells like James in there, which is not the big draw it might once have been, oh, the day before yesterday – and takes a long shower, but pretty soon her nose is pressed up against the glass, gazing at the ants downtown.

Cassie’s not going to play hide and seek with Shepard all day. She digs out some more clothes and heads for the elevator. She’s nervous about being in a box, but the access panels conceal neither prison guards nor bounty hunters. Her confidence grows and she feels light on her feet. It’s going to be difficult for Williams to hunt her when she doesn’t exist.

In the building’s lobby she walks past someone who looks kind of familiar. It's hard to be sure because he's currently choking on a sandwich, eyes bulging out of a red face. Cassie gives him a friendly Heimlich hump while barely breaking stride. She hurries off before she gets trapped. _Junior commando rescue!_

He follows her out into the street, so she flips the hood of her sweater up and darts across the boulevard. The traffic isn’t heavy enough to provide a lot of cover, but he doesn’t look like much of an operator. She watches him from a doorway, then ducks inside.

The coffee shop buzzes pleasantly with smells and sounds. It’s overload for Cassie. The menu’s longer than her biography. The choice of beans alone… maybe if she thinks of it like modding a rifle? _Long beans, hard roast for extra stopping power. Coarse grind to enhance penetration…_

“Please, Commander. Allow me,” says choking man. He has a meticulous grasp of the minutiae but doesn’t notice the barista rolling their eyes. He is known here, and his strangeness is tolerated. It even seems to be a buffer against her second-hand celebrity. No-one’s batting an eye. Cassie contemplates slipping away but she’s never had a half-caf black-roast frothy cap with cipritine extract and is helplessly curious.

It is moderately disgusting. Bulging eyes are puppydog-eager to broach some subject with the Commander, so Cassie takes a moment to really savour the clash of incompatible flavours in the grainy sludge she’s been given while she slips into character. She glances up at him finally, and things fall into place. He’s a regular at the more public gigs. A front-row seat-filler, head-nodder, and every-word-hanger. Shepard’s number one fan, in other words.

She’s ready to begin when the barista brings over his order and drops his name. _Luck is only as deep as the unit backing you up._ She nods thankfully to the server. “What have you got for me, Conrad?” she asks, leaning forward and giving him the full Shepard.

He unfurls his conspiracy for her, every link as solid as only paranoid delusions tempered by good intentions can be. “So you see, Commander, I knew as soon as I saw you! She’s escaped! Did you find any clues in the penthouse?”

“So many I don’t know where to start,” Cassie replies. “How’d you know about her in the first place?”

He seems affronted. “The differences are so… obvious. She’s not very good at playing you. She doesn’t really believe what she’s saying.”

“You go to all her events?” Cassie’s fuming. She thought her performances had been pretty convincing, considering.

He nods. “I’ve seen you there a few times, but I didn’t want to blow your cover.”

“Good thinking,” says Cassie. A few times? Shepard’s been keeping a close eye on her, but she’s been sloppy. Or does Conrad’s obvious obsession grant him savant-like powers to detect Shepard-shaped objects?

Cassie’s flattered by the attention but she’s conscious that her bid for freedom and adventure hasn’t led her very far. She tasks Conrad with keeping watch, which seems to be his day job anyway, and prepares to leave.

Then Shepard walks in, and she has to suck Conrad’s face to distract him. He’s not such a bad kisser, actually.

“There you are,” says Shepard. She already knows her companion, nods to him. “Conrad.”

Cassie disengages with less regret than you might expect. Conrad looks like he’s going to pop, eyes swivelling between the two of them. Cassie can see his house of cards teetering, watches him erect a hasty scaffolding of conjecture to rescue what he can. “Of course!” he begins, but Shepard cuts him off.

“You got a minute?”

Cassie’s confused. Doesn’t Shepard’s grand plan rely on nobody clocking the two of them cooking up conspiracy in a public coffee house? Either way, Cassie can only play it cool. “Sure. My place or yours?”

“I was thinking, the beach,” Shepard says.

“I didn’t bring my costume.”

Shepard hefts a small shoulder bag. “Got you covered.”

Cassie sits back and toys with her coffee cup. She knows she owes Shepard, but she’s getting a little tired of the run-around. “Are we gonna talk or are you gonna make me kiss another turian?”

Shepard’s grin comes and goes so fast it leaves afterimages. “You win either way?”

Cassie thunks her head on the table as dramatically as she knows how. “Take me back to my cell now, please.”

Shepard laughs. Like all of her displays of emotion, it’s short and intense. “I’ll make sure you get home OK.” 

Cassie looks up at Shepard. There’s no malice there, and that might be the whole damn problem. Her brow furrows. “I kinda wanted to get in some trouble, you know?”

“Wait until you see the beach,” Shepard replies portentously.

Cassie drags herself out of the chair and gives Conrad a goodbye peck on the cheek. He starts out of his fugue but they’re already at the door.

The beach is a couple hundred metres of the new coastline that’s had tonnes of sand dumped over the fresh gashes in the bedrock. It’s busy, and nobody is wearing swimming costumes, or indeed anything. “We’ll be invisible here,” says Shepard. “Even if we are the hottest thing around.”

Cassie slips the proffered sunglasses over her eyes. “This is just a ploy to see me naked, isn’t it?”

“Did you forget about breakfast already?” Shepard reminds her.

Cassie tilts her head. “I had boots on. OK, then it’s an excuse for you to get naked in front of me, right?”

“I’ll leave my clothes on if it makes you more comfortable.”

Cassie favours Shepard with a grin as she flops down onto the sand and starts stripping off. “I didn’t say that.”

They sit in naked silence together for a while. Neither of them seems to know where to begin. Cassie lies back on her towel. The sun isn’t too strong. She has a million questions. _What the hell are you going to do with the Normandy once you steal it? Am I going to, like, tag along, like, forever? When do I get to live_ my _life? Am I always going to be a fugitive? What do I even want? To kiss everybody, right, but apart from that?_

Cassie’s thought bubble is popped by rustling paper. Shepard’s sitting cross-legged, reading a book. Cassie knows that lurid cover, she knows that broken spine. “Ah, fuck,” she snarls. “It’s all been you, hasn’t it?”

Shepard looks up, mildly perturbed, before Cassie knocks her flat on her back.

“James, the job, the books… you’ve been fucking with my head! Turning me soft! You’re setting me up!” Cassie straddles Shepard and gives her the schoolgirl pin. Level N7 it is not, although it is effective enough.

“I sent my best friend to take care of you, got you out most days, and lent you my favourite books,” is Shepard’s version. “Yeah, I’m a real bitch,” she sneers.

Cassie’s rage plunges through the inversion layer. Tears well in her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m _for_.”

“Me neither,” admits Shepard. “But I know where home is, and I want it back.”

Cassie rolls off of Shepard. “You don’t really need me, do you,” she says.

“You tried to kill yourself instead of join me.”

“I fucked that up, too.”

“Everyone else just wants to suck my dick.”

Cassie does a double-take, just to be sure. “What? All your friends?” She can’t stop herself. “Cocksuckers?”

Shepard snickers. “OK. Maybe not. You don’t have a monopoly on self-pity, little weasel.”

It’s a line from volume two of Cassie T’Pone’s adventures. “I’m going to shrivel up and die now, is that cool with you?” It’s bad enough that Shepard’s seen right through her all this time. Now she’s mocking her too. Cassie lies back on the sand and covers her eyes with her hand.

“Hey.” Shepard pokes her in the side with a finger.

Cassie groans.

“Wanna make out?”

Cassie opens her eyes to confirm that Shepard’s not kidding around. For some reason it hasn’t crossed her mind until now. In less than forty-eight hours, she’s kissed Shepard’s ex, friends, guests, and stalker. Every time she’s been wondering if she’s swirling her tongue like Shepard does, or if they prefer her to Shepard, or… Shepard pokes her again. “Stop it!”

“You’re over-thinking this.”

Cassie balls her fists. “Cut out the middleman.” _Fuck it._

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

Shepard is skilled, but Cassie has more recent experience. Their tongues ebb and flow. Cassie feels deliciously passive at first, happy to let Shepard explore, to melt into the sand. She grows in confidence when she senses Shepard’s uncertainty, and pulls her down, down into anoxia, stretching time until they forget their bodies, letting the ocean’s bell ring louder in their ears.

But this melding is not what Cassie wants, exactly. “Take me home,” she gasps.

They stumble back together. They shed sand and clothes on the way to the bedroom. The guns watch over their frantic coupling. Through their union they divide, the fingered and the fingerer. If Shepard is screaming then she is not her, and that is a good enough reason. With their tongues they conquer and surrender, and one falls, nerveless and spasming, covering the other in glory.

Cassie, by any accounting, is the easy victor. Shepard cannot but respond to her hungry touch. Her back arches again and again, her throat closing against the sweet torture of Cassie’s nimble fingers.

Cassie finds herself astride Shepard. Her entreaties are too incoherent to decipher in detail, and her struggles too feeble to be effective. Cassie never expected Shepard would be so receptive. She had her figured for a cold, efficient wringer of flesh, going by the heat and enthusiasm of all her friends, and… Cassie spends a few seconds thinking about Shepard’s mom. She’s seen pictures. She’d go there. She shakes it off.

Shepard’s staring at something. Cassie follows her gaze and grins. There on the wall, racked between the long guns and the machine pistols, another kind of weapon, hidden in plain sight. And hanging underneath it, what could be mistaken for accessories, webbing and ammo. Shepard sees her see, catches her eye.

Cassie springs off the bed and Shepard grabs for her ankle, pulling her down. Cassie knows she’s no match for Shepard hand-to-hand, so she pulls out the dirtiest move she can think of, one in the stinky and two in the cooch. _I’d like to see Cassie T’Pone try_ this.

Shepard collapses to trembling knees as Cassie works the pincer. With her other hand she unhooks the webbing. A flick and she’s got Shepard’s wrist encircled. Just like tying a... she shivers with deja vu, Samantha's thrusting arm in her mind's eye. Have all of Shepard's friends been nudging her along this path? Does Shepard know? She follows Shepard’s wavering eyes again, and sees the convenient attachment points at the head of the bed.

Maybe it doesn't really matter. Cassie wants this so bad her stomach's turning. She wants Shepard to face annihilation, even if just for a sweet moment. Then maybe she'll be able to catch a glimpse of herself, when she's not blinded by Shepard's blaze.

Soon Shepard is folded and trussed, panting and wet, hungry but silent. Cassie’s pretty sure she’s been playing to lose but she’s past caring. Her own thighs tremble as she mounts the heavy strap-on. It purrs to life as she squeezes it, and Shepard makes a mewling noise.

Cassie sinks it home just as soon as the harness is tight. Her hips curve around Shepard’s ass as she shuffles her knees forward. Shepard is breathing in urgent gasps. Cassie can feel the rubber cock throbbing between them. Shepard is right on the edge of something that’ll permanently lower her IQ.

Cassie considers pulling back, finding her clothes, walking away and losing herself. It’s a big galaxy. She’d never have to see Shepard or any of these people again. She could live her own life, be her own person, kiss whoever she wanted, fall in love, shoot big guns, kick some ass, make friends, hang out, have her own adventures.

Shepard comes with a stuttering cry, not once but three times in a row.

Cassie watches Shepard’s tears flow freely as she writhes and spasms against her bulk. Of course, she’s got all that, right here, if she wants it. Cassie leans in harder, triggering Shepard again, and seeks those desperate lips. They quiver against her own.

Cassie tastes one more sweet victory and feels her own body pulse and clench in satisfaction. She groans into Shepard’s mouth, rides her until they're both spent.

The door swishes open. “Well,” says Ashley. “This is awkward.”

Shepard’s not too far gone to roll her eyes. She exchanges an exhausted, but significant, glance with Cassie. Cassie understands, or maybe she doesn’t. She tags the restraints free and lets Shepard unfold.

Ashley blinks widely and steps back under the pressure of their combined stare. They look at each other one more time. This time Cassie’s sure. They leap into action. _Junior commandos! Go go go!_


End file.
